A data center is a facility that houses servers, data storage devices, and/or other associated components such as backup power supplies, redundant data communications connections, environmental controls such as air conditioning and/or fire suppression, and/or various security systems. A data center may be maintained by an information technology (IT) service provider. An enterprise may purchase data storage and/or data processing services from the provider in order to run applications that handle the enterprises' core business and operational data. The applications may be proprietary and used exclusively by the enterprise or made available through a network for anyone to access and use.
Virtual computing instances (VCIs) (also commonly referred to as virtual machines (VMs)) have been introduced to lower data center capital investment in facilities and operational expenses and reduce energy consumption. A VCI is a software implementation of a computer that executes application software in a manner analogous to a physical computer. VCIs have the advantage of not being bound to physical resources, which allows VCIs to be moved around and scaled to meet changing demands of an enterprise without affecting the use of the enterprise's applications. In virtualized environments, some VCIs can provide other, dependent, VCIs with services (e.g., solutions) that extend functionalities of those dependent VCIs.